“Yesterday, Hull councillors Gary Wareing, Dean Kirk and Gill Kennett, the ‘Hull 3′ were victimised for their principled refusal to vote for the budget where cuts will throw 600 people out of work and further reduce services across the city.

Gary and Dean were ‘indefinitely suspended’ from the Labour group, Gill suspended for three months.

Such action for defiance of the whip is not obligatory on councils. Other councillors elsewhere in the past, such as in Broxtowe council in 2012, have not faced disciplinary action for sticking to their principles and voting against cuts in defiance of the majority of their Labour group.

Defying the whip has often been required from socialists in the Party. Just over ten years ago, 121 MPs defied a three-line whip to vote against Blair’s Iraq invasion. They were not ‘suspended’ from the Parliamentary party. They are now rightly and widely acknowledged as having been right and those who imposed the whip wrong.

Across the country, Labour and campaign activists and even MPs are watching the excellent film, Spirit of 45, about the creation of the welfare state and its step-by-step demolition by the Tories. You can do something to help stop some of that demolition now. Support campaigners against these cuts, support those who stand true to their principles. Please support the ‘Hull 3′ as well as other councillors who also face victimisation.”